July 23rd, 2009

I was otherwise engaged for most of Obama’s presser yesterday, but I happened to watch the last few minutes of it on CNN.

The very first thing I heard in the wrap-up was their political correspondent (a woman; I didn’t catch her name) declaring somewhat testily that Obama hadn’t said much of anything new. That was so different from the usual CNN ObamaLove fest that it made me realize he must have done very poorly indeed.

Point-by-point takedowns of his statements at the press conference abound in the blogosphere, so there’s really no need for me to add to them with another general critique. But consider this: even the ordinarily Obamaphile AP found his performance pretty bad, and deceptive as well.

But I did hear Obama’s remarks on the Gates arrest. Even though very little that Obama says these days surprises me, I was still somewhat in awe at the cleverness of his description of the incident. If you didn’t know the facts of the case—and I’m betting that most people listening to his presser didn’t (including Obama, according to his own admission)—you might think that Obama’s remarks made perfect sense [emphasis mine]:

I don’t know all the facts. What’s been reported, though, is that the guy forgot his keys, jimmied his way to get into the house; there was a report called into the police station that there might be a burglary taking place.

So far, so good, right?…The police are doing what they should. There’s a call. They go investigate. What happens? My understanding is, at that point, Professor Gates is already in his house. The police officer comes in. I’m sure there’s some exchange of words. But my understanding is — is that Professor Gates then shows his ID to show that this is his house, and at that point he gets arrested for disorderly conduct, charges which are later dropped.

Now, I’ve — I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that. But I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home.

As you can see, Obama eliminated from the story the notion that there might be any behavior on Gates’s part that could have actually justified the charge, and then called the police’s action “stupid.” Yes, “any of us would be angry” if he/she were arrested for no reason. But any of us would not be angry if police had come to investigate the understandable report of an apparent break-in—which even Obama admits at that point was “so far, so good” on the part of the police.

So, what’s up with the “exchange of words” (a euphemism for: “Gates said angry things to the cops”)? Why would Gates have been angry at that point, when the police had done nothing wrong, which even Obama admits (“so far, so good”)? And if Gates’s words were angry enough and abusive enough, are the police supposed to ignore that because the person is in his own house and didn’t commit burglary?

What was the fuss then? Well, we all know what the fuss must have been: race. At the very least, Gates was most likely accusing the police of being racists, and so is Obama implicitly by his support of Gates, despite his denials ” (“I don’t know…what role race played in that”). As Obama is well aware, white people who are argumentative and/or verbally abusive with police officers are hardly immune to charges of disorderly conduct. Au contraire; but they can’t cry “racism” if that happens. Would Obama call the police “stupid” for arresting a white person (and non-Harvard non-professor) for disorderly conduct, if none of the other facts of the case were changed?

Somehow I doubt it. Obama is (among other things) a lawyer; surely he knows better than to pre-judge the actions of the police here, in a case in which the police are alleging belligerent conduct on the part of Gates as the reason for his arrest.

It’s true that we don’t know how belligerent Gates did or didn’t get. But that’s all the more reason for the President to simply have passed on making a judgment. Perhaps Obama, who attended Harvard Law School (which, after all, is in Cambridge) has some sort of history himself with Cambridge cops stopping him for lack of cause, and it’s payback time? At any rate, I wonder how his accusation against the police played with the National Association of Police Organizations, and what its members are thinking right about now of their pre-election endorsement of Obama.

And here’s that nefarious neocon Bill Kristol on the subject of Obama’s “stupid” remark:

Does he really know enough about what happened to say that? Maybe it was Professor Gates who behaved stupidly, or at least arrogantly. He is, after all, a Harvard professor. I was once a Harvard professor, and my instinct is to side with the Cambridge cops.

It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

As for the cop in question, James M. Crowley, he’s hanging tough and refusing to apologize to Gates. Crowley is by all accounts a consummate professional as a police officer who “has led his colleagues in diversity training.” But no matter; Obama’s rush to judgment on national TV may put this man in grave jeopardy, although I hope not.

[NOTE: Before Crowley became a Cambridge policeman he was an EMT and police officer at Brandeis University, and in an odd coincidence he was the person who answered the call and administered CPR when Celtics star Reggie Lewis collapsed and died in a Waltham gym back in 1993, a terribly tragic event known to all New England sports fans.]

[ADDENDUM: If you go to Drudge, you’ll find a link to some of the facts that Obama couldn’t wait for, excerpts from the police report (excuse me: the stupid police report) of the incident.

It states that Gates was threatening and belligerent from the start, accusing the officer of racism. His belligerence and threats and declarations that the officer had no idea who he was “messing” with continued unabated, despite the officer’s warnings that he was becoming disorderly. There were many witnesses to much of this, which continued out on the street.

Interestingly enough, it comes out in the police report that Gates’s door had been damaged in a previous attempt at a real break-in by some unknown burglar. You’d think Gates would have been grateful at the police arriving so promptly in response to the neighbor’s call-in. Apparently not.]

[ADDENDUM II: Well, there’s one police organization that doesn’t think too much of what Obama said, although its spokesperson is more measured and careful in his remarks than our President was last night.

And I can’t help but characterize Obama Press Secretary Gibbs’ attempt at damage control as “stupid,”—although I admit that Obama didn’t give him much good material to work with:

Let me be clear. He was not calling the officer stupid, OK?” Gibbs told reporters on Air Force One. “He was denoting that … at a certain point the situation got far out of hand, and I think all sides understand that.”

[ADDENDUM III: The officer with Crowley, the one who wrote the report of the incident, appears to have been a wise Latino named Carlos Figueroa. And “Gates’ attorney, Harvard Professor Charles Ogletree, said his client showed his driver’s license and Harvard ID — both with his photo — but did not dispute other details of the arrest.” That would tend to mean that Gates was every bit as abusive and threatening as Crowley and Figueroa have alleged, and that there are enough witnesses to support that fact.]

189 Responses to “Obama and those stupid Cambridge police”

We don’t have a video, we all have our templates, and the information from the principles is not exactly the same. So in this, we are in no different position than we are with a thousand other incidents we hear about every year. We don’t know; we might make some preliminary guesses that individual bits of Gates’s actions or the police’s actions weren’t quite right.

But Obama thinks he knows. It is inappropriate for a president to weigh in on such issues. This is yet another illustration of how progressives believe they know how the world runs, and need to keep the rest of us in line. He is sure that there is a racial angle, and only his sort of wise personage can set things right in the world, unto the Bright New Day when we all have milk and cookies.

After trying to sell us, with lies and slander, a package of “Health Care Reform” more expensive than the Iraq war and with possibly more casualties, he ends his calumny on doctors by shitting on a cop.

Have to admit my jaw dropped when that little pearl of wisdom, about the “stupid” Cambridge police, was dropped — at a press conference — that drew millions of viewers. (Tho’ it was so bad, so boring as more of the same old same old obfuscation and outright lies, many might have tuned out by the end.)

But, neo, Obama did say something else specifically to infer that this incident was indeed racial:

“As you know, Lynn, when I was in the state legislature in Illinois, we worked on a racial profiling bill because there was indisputable evidence that blacks and Hispanics were being stopped disproportionately. And that is a sign, an example of how, you know, race remains a factor in the society.

That doesn’t lessen the incredible progress that has been made. I am standing here as testimony to the progress that’s been made. And yet the fact of the matter is, is that, you know, this still haunts us.

And even when there are honest misunderstandings, the fact that blacks and Hispanics are picked up more frequently, and oftentime for no cause, casts suspicion even when there is good cause. And that’s why I think the more that we’re working with local law enforcement to improve policing techniques so that we’re eliminating potential bias…”

It probably is true that there is racial profiling on the part of police, however, fact is, much like those services of the US who try to track down Extremist Islamic terrorists, there is more chance of succeeding if you are attuned to a specific “look” or description of most perpetrators, if such exists. And it happens that the facts are that there are many more African-Americans “and Latinos” (as the President verbally emphasized when including them) who commit crimes in proportion to the entire population of the US.

lumpy: if you read the whole report, you’ll find that Gates did eventually show an ID, after a lot of objections and accusations on his part. And the accusations didn’t stop there—it’s alleged that they continued, and that there are witnesses to that fact since some of the brouhaha occurred on the street in front of Gates’s house.

Even the NYT seems to have been underwhelmed by Obama’s performance last night — at least a little. All day long they’ve had a subhead on their online front page (haven’t seen the dead-tree version) reading “Some points in talk disputed” and linking to a piece that points out several misstatements (not their word — they avoid characterizing the remarks as anything more than “debatable”) in his remarks about health care and the budget. The last sentence has to be one of the most confrontational lines the NYT has ever directed at this president: “So Mr. Obama is claiming credit for not spending money that, under the policy he inherited from Mr. Bush, would never have been spent in the first place.”

This is yet another illustration of how progressives believe they know how the world runs, and need to keep the rest of us in line.

Also, I believe this is a clear example of Barack displaying intellectual density. A smart person does not say “I don’t know the facts”, and then go on to assert a conclusion. If Barack had worked his way up in the world – had succeeded at running various enterprises, had to refereed disputes between employees, had to tiptoed through an EEOC minefield, and through potential exposures to legal actions arising from race or gender – would Barack EVER have said “I dont’ know the facts” yet here is my conclusion. Never.

Even w/o having worked his way up via concrete accomplishment, it’s still amazing Barack would embrace such flawed reasoning; would act upon such assumption. Barack is dense. Barack is arrogant. It ain’t what he don’t know that’s hurting us so badly, but rather what he does know that ain’t so.

I think the Gates Assumption is a demarcation point. It will be remembered by the public. It shows Barack leaps to assumptions in rash fashion. If Barack makes this assumption about the police officer, what rash assumptions has Barack embraced about Iran? Israel? Honduras? Tax policy? Spending? Health Care?

The average voter can understand the Gates vs. police dynamic. We all know s/o, or know of s/o, who has been arrested for mouthing off in an incident which had nothing to do w/race. I’m the whitest guy ever. The one time I began to speak angrily to a police officer, I never completed my first sentence before being certainly informed that, if more words came from my mouth, I would shortly be residing in jail. It was infuriating. And I immediately shut the heck up.

B/c police interaction resonates with the average voter, therefore Barack’s Gates Assumption will resonate. Someday, we will look back on this as a turning point.

One more thing: someday, we may even look back on this as a turning point in our dainty and fearful handling of any accusation of racism against any white person.

Ricci resonated with a the voting public which instinctively understands the injustice of racial quotas. The public noticed the selection of Sotomayor, and the defense of Sotomayor, and the refusal of either Sotomayor or Dem Senators to come clean over Ricci.

The racial Gates Assumption, coming on the heels of the racial Ricci discussion, and on the heels of the unforthright Sotomayor defense, will resonate.

Second more thing: between the Sotomayor defense and the Gates Assumption, Barack may have ceded his Oprah-esque status as a bargainer who is beyond race. The Gates Assumption is as blatantly racial as it gets. And people understand interaction with police. This won’t be easy for Barack to shrug off. As it concerns race, and in the eyes of the public and of voters, I don’t think it can be shrugged off.

It would take a Joe Kennedy type full court press to rebuild Barack as being beyond race. Maybe a buyoff or a threat which induces an onsite witness to tell a tale. Maybe a world victimization tour by Gates, telling a fully sympathetic story.

Worst case, in my mind, would be an attack upon character of the police officer: James Crowley, in the style of the attacks upon Clarence Thomas, Gen Petraeus, Joe the Plumber, Frank Ricci.

Where is BO’s empathy? Does he even attempt to put himself in the shoes of a policeman who has to enter a house not knowing whether a second man with a gun is lurking behind a door somewhere? If Gates is so smart, he should have found a way to establish his identity without contributing to Crowley’s perfectly natural and desirable threat-assessment mode of thinking. BO thinks this reaction to policemen is excusable based on experiences of blacks, but in fact it has been cultivated. The Sharpton way of crying racist before getting the facts has been a role model.

That statement may make sense if by “us” Obama is referring to blacks with chips on their shoulders.. If he’s referring to Americans at large, it doesn’t.

No one I know – of any race – would be at all angry to have the police show up when their house was broken into, regardless of who was breaking and entering. In fact, most people would be pleased that a) their neighbors had stepped up for them, and b) the cops had shown up in timely fashion.

And Obama has only proven once again that he is an utter fool. How does he know that a video won’t show up on YouTube that will make him look ridiculous, and necessitate an apology to the Cambridge police? What a nitwit!

He’s nailed his colors to the mast when he himself admits he doesn’t know what happened. He looks bad now, for jumping in with his size 13s when he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He could look even worse if his position is later proven to be rubbish. Then he’d either have to apologize or stonewall when he was clearly in the wrong.

Suppose this had been the Duke lacrosse “rape” case, or the Tawana Brawley fiasco. How ridiculous could he look, if, as in those cases, proof later emerges that he’s on the wrong side?

The smart thing to do was…nothing. But failing that, issue some anodyne statement about the necessity of upholding law and civil rights, and how he’s sure that justice will be done. But no. He’s got to insert his foot in his mouth.

Obama: You’re the President, as you keep reminding us. ACT LIKE IT. Think before you speak. If nothing comes up on the teleprompter, shut up until you receive your instructions.

Wow, the PD isn’t stepping back and has their talking points in order!:

McDonald defended the police department’s record on race.

“This is an excellent police department dedicated to nondiscrimination,” he told ABC News. “It was inappropriate to use the situation to implicate the history of racism in America. This had nothing to do with race and everything to do with Gates’ behavior.”

I guess when you’re dealing with a lot of pompous Hahvahd a-hole perferssers you gotta have your rhetoric down.

This whole incident reminds me somewhat of Cynthia McKinney when she struck the Capitol police officer with her cell phone because he had the termerity to question her identity. She certainly attempted to play her worn out old race card.

We thought racial equality would happen with Obama as President and the race card would not get played. Then there it is a great big slap in the face. Why is Gates not asked to apologize to the white police officer for his bad behavior?…..because he is using being black the reason for his arrest. Gates is embarrassed so the only thing he can do is claim racism to save face. The officer would have made this arrest even if he was white and acting the way Gates was ….so shame on Obama.

if Gates’s words were angry enough and abusive enough, are the police supposed to ignore that because the person is in his own house and didn’t commit burglary?

yes… the old idea was a man (or woman) in their home were in a special place where they are sovereign. (a mans home is his castle)

one of my favorite police story videos (and i hate police story vids), is one where a really high strung man just went off on this cop. the cop the whole time was nice, curteous (even when informing the man that if he didnt pick up the paper he would have to ticket him for littering). the man didnt want to sign the ticket, and freaked on the price.

contrast this with SEVERAL incidents of police using tasers on a black woman, a elderly woman, and other sundry people for refusing to sign a ticket (which they dont have to sign).

in many cases police will get nasty if you are sufficiently submissive enough, usually i find this more with city cops (who seem to not have learned that everyone has cameras and people dont trust them as they used to).

many of the cops that get nasty pump iron and do steroids. a kind of roid rage backed by blue. and you can see a lot of them now pump.

but this is not a question of what they do do, this is a question of what they should do.

verbal abuse is legal (so far). its considered an expression of speech and causes no harm if it is not defamatory. exclamatory is not necessarily defamatory (except to somes respect for the exclamer).

if one truly understood their job and had the right frame of mind there is nothing another person can say that would rile them. how long would it take for the words to actually physically damage him?

in the home, this would and should be doubly so.

disorderly conduct is a public offense

you cant be disorderly in your own home technically

but its a offense that is almost always thrown out because some police use it as a tool to punish someone by taking some time away from their life that they cant get back.

while i am no fan of the professor and his attitudes, and am no fan of how some people who are involved in race issues act poorly, there was no offense to arrest him for.

was it racist for him to arrest the doc? no. authoritarian yes. but it was not racist in that this officer may have visited this kind of grief to any one who disrespected the authority of the badge enough.

again, he may not normally do this and maybe this invective was escalating more and more and rather than put up with such an escalation to a higher charge nip it in the bud and give them a taste of what they may get if they keep being irrational.

in much of all this we used to be feign in needing a motive, or to assert that there was a motive.

honestly, do most people think in terms of motives to goals, or do most people just kind of pinball their way through the day trying to get what they need to get done?

which is why motive was generally not relevent in anything but premeditated murder or other planned offense.

which brings me to the next point. such an event like this is easy to stage. one need only forget ones keys and not use a locksmith, or first call the police before you do it. in general that this is not what people think to do. though generally the more afluent would not think themselves competent to break in without causing more expensive damage.

the whole thing is one of those things that should just die out cause no one is going to get any real satisfaction out of it, except the guy who had the big mouth yelling crap to an officer of the peace.

it was certainly not something that a person of obama’s stature should bow down and comment on. while he may be a bright man, he is completely ignorant of how to behave or control himself in his office.

he is dangerously impulsive and petty. MANY times so far he has forgotten his station, or thought it was ok to use such station (diminishing it) to sharpen pencils and have the white house clean up the dirt on the floor by re-spinning.

this sort of vindictiveness is not really seen in historical presidents on the personal level (by other means and things thats a different story), at least not internally to average citizens (even if they may have some academic stature).

it IS seen in many of the petty people who tend to rise up the piss cake of socialism to grab all of it and keep knocking the others who wish to occupy the top of the hill for a while.

ultimately the damage he is going to do to race relations and opportunity in america is going to hurt longer than the economics. they are not going to explan and hurt marxism and save the image of people of colors ability, they are going to tag him (regardless if that is wrong or right).

we may be lucky and the system will just roll over to the next set of leaders and such, and stuff can be fixed. we may be unlucky and these people really think that these things are going to result in better outcomes. such people can not make the right decisions and since they are playing a well known playbook and playing so classically that oponents dont even needs spies in the office to know what he would do.

scarier is that in the world market he may think that he has to prove himself before the people he grew up to admire will accept him (honduras). but if this is so, they will just refuse him this connection that he craves, and he will fall all over them trying to please them with everything in our larder.

tell ya the truth, i can see this going in so many directions that i cant get any line on it, and so many of them are painful on many levels.

Artfldgr: by the way, when I read the police report it became clear that Gates was only arrested when he continued his tirades and threats against the officer out on the street, and after several warnings. And his lawyer is not disputing that version of the facts.

That’s where the “disturbing the peace” charge came in. There were quite a few witnesses, as well.

One more chink in the wall. The degree to which this fits the template of what white Americans fear when they are no longer in charge is stunning. The tin ear this displays from Obama is also stunning. He’s tired, and it shows. He’s in for many surprises in the near future. I feel ready to look in a camera and say “I am James Crowley.” I know thousands more are, of all races.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/07/024111.php
is updating, and has this info (links at link):MEANWHILE PROFESSOR GATES KEEPS DIGGING: Law enforcement sources have told ABC News that the conversation between Gates and the police officer was transmitted over Crowley’s open police radio and that Gates can be heard yelling. As I said yesterday, yelling at police officers who are trying to do their job is a low percentage move, and it’s likely that the more Gates presses this matter, the worse he will look.

andUPDATE: You can read the detailed report of the arresting officer, as well as a report by a fellow officer on the Gates arrest, here. If the reports are substantially true (and little Gates reportedly has said contradicts the police account) then Gates should be very embarrassed.
andMister Gates was given plenty of opportunities to stop what he was doing. He didn’t. He acted very irrational he controlled the outcome of that event. There was a lot of yelling, there was references to my mother, something you wouldn’t expect from anybody that should be grateful that you were there investigating a report of a crime in progress, let alone a Harvard University professor.

K, if someone accuses me of racism for showing up while white to try to protect their property, keeps yelling after demanding my name, follows me outside and insults my mother, I’m gonna be a bit…peeved.

According to the guys at Powerline, Officer Crowley’s radio was on during the incident and Gates’s yelling could be heard by others over the radio. Second, Officer Crowley teaches a course in racial profiling at the Lowell police academy– a course that has been highly rated by his students.

Quote from Officer Crowley about his refulsal to apologize: “Mister Gates was given plenty of opportunities to stop what he was doing. He didn’t. He acted very irrational, he controlled the outcome of that event. There was a lot of yelling, there was references to my mother, something you wouldn’t expect from anybody that should be grateful that you were there investigating a report of a crime in progress, let alone a Harvard University professor.”

I concur with the views here but I doubt such perspectives are getting much play in the MSM. This probably will be turned into another “teaching moment” through which Americans are reminded of the terrible injustices of the past and how far they still have to go to achieve a post-racial society.

As for playing the race card, Oama has a full deck, similar to the 52 red queens that Frank Sinatra had in the originial Manchurian Candidate. Expect him to play them all before he’s through.

I apologize for my off-topic comment up the thread at 5:01 p.m. It was meant to go on the press-conference post. Neo, please feel free to delete it if you like. As for this topic, think about this police officer, who puts his life on the line every day when he goes to work and who did so in this case by walking into a house where, for all he knew, a burglary was in progress, in order to protect the property and possibly the life of this Harvard professor — and who has been labeled, in return as a racist by the professor, and as stupid by the President of the United States. I’m glad to see his department and his union standing behind him, because this is the kind of incident that can destroy a career, even if he did nothing wrong.

Let’s just imagine for a moment that the police had not responded to the neighbor’s call and that the result had been a real break-in. Can’t you just imagine Gates getting home from his trip and accusing the Cambridge police of racism because they DIDN’T investigate a burglary report at a black person’s house?

i dont know… i have seen it several times with certain tv shows, and many times with politicians. they try to tell us that what we hear or see is not what we hear or see.

below is from moonbattery quoting another link, and its from the new healthcare bill that passed in the house.

PG 203 Line 14-15 HC — “The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax” Yes, it says that.

so no. i think that they think that we cant understand unless they tell us what to understand. they are so out of touch they do not get that we are individuals who dont all think alike. and if they think we respond like that, thats why they dont listen to us.

there are enough people though that actually act that way that they dont realize the majority of dont. they just dont bother letting them know they know. or as my uncle used to say, just because i didnt let you know that i caught you, didnt mean i am not catching you.

That’s where the “disturbing the peace” charge came in. There were quite a few witnesses, as well.

well i did say it was a public offense… he must have made himself some spectical…

is it me or do the luddites seem to forget that we live in a technological world, and that the techniques of lying easily and acting out and lying later do not work as easily?

interesting thing is that if your good and moral and act it all the time, there is nothing to video (other than others actions to you). so maybe such social morals and customs as we used to have as deportment really was a way to weed and winnow? (among other things of course)

What in the world? Obama is apperaing on Nightline tonight to double-down on what he said?
It doesn’t make sense with all the problems we have out there [the economy, wars, healthcare, etc] to arrest a guy in his own home if he’s not making a serious disturbance.

Powerline reported this quote and I couldn’t believe it until I watched the ABC video. This is strictly an Obama-eye view of things. What do the economy, wars and healthcare have to do with police work in this case?

In Obama’s defence, he’s practically nodding off while talking to the interviewer, but that’s stupid too. Has Team Obama completely lost their campaign chops? There is no upside to this for Obama.

oh… how many people want to bet that somewhere out there there is a guy with a police scanner and no job that has a copy of that?

and obama is digging to china:
“And my suspicion is that words were exchanged between the police officer and Mr. Gates and that everybody should have just settled down and cooler heads should have prevailed. That’s my suspicion. – Obama”

he now is saying that Gates may have acted in a way that was not proper… like iran, korea, germany, and everywhere else, altercations an history can not allow assymetry, only equality everywhere to some unctious extreme. another adobo philosophy where always adding it to everyting just makes everything work out better.

[I just realized what they dont realize about the world the way it is. they no longer know that their games do not work when the society is supported by a scale free network. that as a source of communication and dissemination its ability to work around some sort of control (in a non punitive state), is very limited for all those who participate and do not just put their heads in a fish bowl. (i have written about this otherwise having to do with how as the population grows, lines of communcation fracture, so gossip becaomes newsletters, then newspapers, then radio, then tv… each extends communication when our size would grow that scale would interfere with it, and increases efficiency. but history has been a arms race between those lines and those who wish to control. each capitalisms new efficiency raised it to the next level. while adorno only saw a medium of control, the publics participation has insured that each new level broke control. you can see how the original papers who were all a part of an older time of control (the meetings of carnigie, etc), each new level was harder to control. right now we are on a crux where an open scale free network has the power, if it remains in the hands of people and open, to keep an eye on the leaders if we also have the stomach to no longer vote for any of those liars. as a quick example any one notice how they are relegating the nirthers to the tin hat league, as if the tin hat league was created to dump inconveniences. so maybe its something that will die out because the net shows that some conspiracies are really true. without theinternet what would we all think of honduras. would we ever see film reels of obamas statements over time? you are all now participating in the longer memories of some people who can put things together. they can write all they want and ridicule all they want but they cant control thousands of pools of information storage and recall. eventually it will be either they accept loss of control and we go into space, or they acquire control and we are moribound till some future when nothing works, they cant hold it together, and a new rennaisance puts the money into many peoples hands again]

You’ve got it Kimberly. Much of it has to do with an Gates’ inability to simply own up to his shameful behavior. He MUST ‘save face’. The alternative is to be strong, honest, and risk embarrassment … being real as it’s called. Gates is a bully. Bullies must save face.

I wouldn’t be surprise if this was cooked up as a publicity stunt for Soledad O’Brien’s, “Black in America 2”

EVERYONE deals with misconceptions, inconveniences, and plain ole jerks — that doesn’t make EVERYTHING racism. Ironically, none of these reason were the case in this situation, the police were just doing their job.

ADVICE FOR EVERYONE, if the police stop you don’t holler and scream and jump around like an asshole.

gcotharn: Can you see a way that this works out in Obama’s self-interest? I can’t.

He’s derailed his primetime conference on healthcare. He’s blown off 48-hours worth of news cycle at least for his message (which is healthcare, healthcare, healthcare). He has angered police in Cambridge and probably everywhere. He has played the race card again and driven some white moderates and independents farther away. He was in little of danger of losing support from blacks and minorities if he had just said “No comment, local matter, time will tell, yada-yada.”

Baklava: good point. If you know you can’t defend it, don’t expose it. Allow me to suggest that Obama has another button: race.

Both Gates and Obama are “race men” within the definition presented by the late, great Buck O’Neill during the Jackie Robinson episode of Ken Burns’ series on baseball. As far as I can tell, Obama can’t resist an opportunity to assert racial discrimination. There are those who believe the same of Gates, and thus far I’ve seen no reason to disbelieve it. I think Obama is instinctively supporting another race man, and I doubt he could resist it if he tried.

Most of you know that I’m a (sometime) proud alumnus of Harvard GSAS (grad school). Some remarks from the inside then…

First, Black Studies at Harvard have had a checkered career. The department has been the poor relation and a number of recruited faculty has left with mutterings of various maledictions. It’s not a Happy Ship.

Scuttlebutt has it that the main source of dissatisfaction is one Professor Gates. Rumor (again) is that he runs the department with a heavy hand and as a semi-dictator.

And observable situation is that the less respectable the department, the more arrogant and high handed its faculty.

All these factors make for a Perfect Storm in this incident’s progressions. False Pride, Need to Show Who’s Boss Here, and the always popular “Don’t You Know Who I Am?” syndrome were aired during incident by Mr. Gates, I betcha.

Mr. Gates should meditate on the motto of Harvard a bit “Veritas”. In his case the operative Latin was “Vanitas”.

A couple years ago I left the health club where I was a member. There was a lunar eclipse that evening, and I walked around the parking lot to see if I could get a glimpse of the rising moon. But the sky was overcast and I couldn’t see anything.

I got in my car and started to pull out of the parking lot. Suddenly a man ran up and started pounding on my window. He said he was an undercover cop, showed his badge, and ordered me out of the car. Within moments four police cars surrounded me and the officers all got out. One of them told me (politely but firmly) “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

It turned out that the police had the parking lot staked out because there had been a rash of break-ins of cars. They saw me wandering around the parking lot and thought I was acting suspiciously.

I’m white and the undercover officer who stopped me was black. I never thought the incident was racially motivated.

huxley: gcotharn: Can you see a way that this works out in Obama’s self-interest? I can’t.

I can’t, either. For your stated reasons, and more. Its worse than a mistake: it’s a blunder which is easily understood by regular Joe and Jane America. It won’t be walked away from. The memory will linger all the way into voting booths in 2010 and 2012. I don’t think this is small. I think this is a burr which becomes a blister which becomes infected.

It’s a blunder on several fronts:

1. It spotlights rashness (which in turn spotlights poor reasoning, resulting in the public losing confidence in the formerly brilliant, measured, calm Barack.)

2. It spotlights racial agenda. A lot of people voted for Barack, in part, so our nation could “get beyond race”. As they hear about this, standing around coffee pots, in lunchrooms, they are going to feel betrayed. And they have been betrayed.

3. Barack’s touchy refusal/inability to admit error. Baklava said if people know your button, they will push it. EXACTLY RIGHT. And American’s are watching. Voters may not understand Supply Side Economics, but they do understand people who will not admit error. Barack could have come out today, said: I ought not have said that, and I apologize, and this story would have gone away quickly enough. He’s getting bad advice. I expect it is his own fault. When you are not good at listening, when you are hostile to people giving contrasting views, you create a dearth of advice around you. You create people around you who are afraid to speak up and save you from yourself. I suspect this is what has happened around Barack. That his advisors let him get past 9:00 AM EDT w/o apologizing is amazing. Are his own advisors trying to teach him a lesson?

The unapologetic statement by the police department leads me to believe that there must be some strong evidence that puts the officer in a good light and the professor in a bad light – just a guess. The officer will be definitely be in trouble if it is found that the professor did not break any law.

There is no question that Obama screwed up by taking sides. He should have said he could not comment because he didn’t have all the facts. You can be a smooth talker and still do the wrong thing. Perhaps the fact that the professor is a friend made for a momentary lapse of judgement during the press conference.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I don’t see Obama backing down from his statement – not with his ego. As far as political repercussions are concerned – the MSM and the Obama-backers will take Obama’s side and the side of the professor. The standard Progressive stance is that the police are ALWAYS wrong in these types of cases. For Progressives the military and the police = bad people. So, no political downside for Obama, no matter what. The only people who will be upset over Obama’s reaction will be folks like us that don’t like him anyway.

If I were the police department and I had strong evidence that the professor was in the wrong I would do as they seem to be doing now – which is to allow the professor to publicly make a lot of bogus assertions. Give him enough rope and he will hang himself.

I doubt he could resist it if he tried…but this is pure catnip for Obama,

Exactly. It’s like smoking out commies. Just speak disparagingly (or even questioningly) of one of their martyrs or heroes. They simply cannot control the urge to leap to his defense. They’ll try to make their defense sound as though it’s based on universal principles of morality and justice simply being applied in the abstract, but their passion betrays them. It’s quite amusing to watch, actually, albeit so easily provoked as to be unsporting. They simply can’t help themselves. Conservatives are accustomed to keeping their mouths shut to avoid public scenes.

If I were the police department and I had strong evidence that the professor was in the wrong I would do as they seem to be doing now – which is to allow the professor to publicly make a lot of bogus assertions.

Bullseye. It’s the smart strategy: sandbag your opponent by letting him think that he knows everything you’ve got, and hope that he overplays his hand, then POW! Game over.

Gates’s door had been damaged in a previous attempt at a real break-in by some unknown burglar. Probably a white burglar, because, don’t you know, nobody calls the cops on white burglars when they’re forcing open someone’s front door.

Gcotharn asked, “Are his own advisors trying to teach him a lesson?” In many cases, no. I believe that many if not most of his advisors agree with him — they were selected for agreeing with him.

It is these beliefs that will bring down the Obama agenda, as middle class, ordinary Americans like ourselves see what our masters think of and have planned for us. This is why I welcome this contretemps…

except for Gates’ neighbor who made the 911 call. For doing a good deed her life now sucks. She needs a witness protection program and won’t get it from this administration.

More proof that Obama is not hyper-intelligent as many would have believe. An intelligent man, certainly an intelligent man who occupies the office of the Presidency, would have simply stated “No comment” or something to that effect. Obama could not help himself and offered a lecture on race relations. This will haunt him for some time.

Well if gates behaved shamefully, what about all the times the police have behaved shamefully to minorities? As for intelligence, our president is far more intelligent than the inbred morons posting here:) Besides, calling a spade a spade is something we americans pride ourselves on, so whats the big deal? All these comments here are from anti obama bigots who will latch onto any little data to attack him….no matter, we will re-elect him for another 4 years..GO OBAMA! GO USA!

Typical racist policing by law officers sworn to uphold and protect ALL Americans….Its great to finally have a president who is unwilling to turn a blind eye to such injustices to humanity. WELL DONE MR OBAMA!

I don’t think a people that made slaves out of fellow human beings have any right to feel affronted or angry over your Presidents remarks…He is a fine man, be glad you got him!

[note from neo-neocon: Andrew, Bill, and Nick are sock puppets. Same IP number. Not that it wasn’t already obvious from the times of their postings; their style of writing; and their timeless, incisive, convincing, and substantive message.]

Agree with many of the comments, we are seeing a disturbing pattern here, he is getting bad advice as Gcotharn said, and he is making rash decisions with little thought and refusing to listen to any alternative, OR, very likely, his staff has found out that that isn’t something you do, you be a yes man/woman, even if you know its wrong or you are history. Examples:
The cocktail party comment that at least in the Bush administration you could discuss differing viewpoints but could not under any circumstances in this one.
The comment to the Military about what would happen if they requested more troops for Afghanistan
The action on Iran.
The action on Honduras.
Dismissal of the black panthers, which was an open and shut case.
This comment, which demonstrate that he is not the president of everyone, only of people like him and he views everything through the racial lens. This could and probably will set race relation back decades, he still doesn’t realize he is in charge.
Discussed this tonight, the consensus was that we would be quite pleased that the police showed up, I believe a recording or cell video will surface, meanwhile Gates keeps on digging away.

I love the irony . . . per the police report, Gates said “you don’t know who you’re messin’ with!” Then it turns out the good sergeant is an expert on racial profiling. Also noteworthy that Crowley kept the microphone on so that all the cops back at headquarters could hear the whole kerfuffle.

Little American boys like me, going to a little country school, learned not to “lip off” to big boys. Maybe they don’t teach that in Indonesian elementary schools, or in expensive Hawaiian prep schools. Or in the African Studies program at Harvard.

This proves clearly that Obama is not ‘presidential’. He is not above the parties and he is not prudent. This was reckless and partial behaviour, totally unworthy of a president.
And this is the crazy thing about the ‘chameleon’ Obama: on the one hand he goes around the world acting like he is God himself above all parties (where his duty is to represent the US) and then at home he acts like a dumb partyhack when he should and could be unpartial and wise in a commonsensical way.
Outside the US he is ‘above’ the US and inside the US he is ‘beneath’ the US, siding with certain factions.
Neither in foreign nor in domestic matters he is acting as a solid, wise and balanced president.

I said a couple days ago that race is the Old Reliable for Obama. (huxley, I am flattered to be mistaken for Occam’s Beard.) Andrew McCarthy thought the question might have been planted, which if true means that Obama does not consider this to be an own goal.

How does that work? For one thing, it takes attention away from the health care package, when there wasn’t enough time to find all the mangy details and give them some publicity. Now there is even less time.

If this is the strategy, it is remarkably stupid. And he has exposed his weakness. Michael Steele, please call your office.

Darrell, you touched upon something that has worried me since before the election. One’s social, economic and political views aren’t determined by one’s skin color except to the extent one chooses to make it so. I think anyone who has read Obama’s first autobiography is familiar with how this works. To a race man, everything is about race. But most of us don’t get that; we’re too busy living our lives. I believe it will only take Obama commenting about a couple more incidents like this before the rest of us get that the nation’s chief executive (that noted constitutional lecturer) believes that whitey is guilty until proven innocent.

As a child of the 60’s, I was inspired by Dr. King when he talked about the content of our character rather than the color of our skin. Sadly, as Darrell predicted, race relations in America probably will be set back a generation. It just makes me sick. And pissed.

Gotta love “Andrew” and “Bill” posting the same message in the same format (use of ellipses, and concluding with an all caps accolade to the Nubian Narcissist). Who could’ve figured they were the same person?

MikeLL, that would probably be Hillary. Dunno about the tell-all book, but she hasn’t given up on being President, and is probably just biding her time, waiting for the Messiah’s charm to wear thin and for Him to step in the dog’s business. Come around summer 2010 she’ll resign on a matter of conscience and run against him for the nomination in 2012.

That’s my prediction. She didn’t give up a safe Senate seat out of civic duty, that’s for sure.

I don’t know for a fact exactly what the officer said, what Mr. Gates said, or how any of this transpired. I do know for a fact that President Obama knew even less when he talked to the press than we do now.

It is now obvious that Obama should have buttoned his lip, and let the Cambridge locals handle their own affair.

At the time Mr. Obama was apparently not privvy to certain pertinent facts:
-It is police protocol under such circumstances to remove even a resident from their home in case they are under duress
-The policemen were dispatched to Mr. Gates home on official business and spoke to an eye witness on the scene – who believed it was a break-in
-It is police protocol under such circumstances to remove even a resident from their home in case they are under duress
-Mr. Obama hadn’t read the please report, according to which Mr. Gates was immediately argumentative with the policeman; initially refusing to show identification, and after the policeman was preparing to leave Mr. Gates followed him out into the front lawn, loudly repeated his charges of racism, and stated “ya, I’ll speak with your mama outside.”

Had Mr. Obama known that would he have conceded that perhaps it was Mr. Gates who “acted stupidly”?

Indeed it was Mr. Obama who acted stupidly. Make no doubt, even the liberals in Massachusetts will rally around this cop.

From the Russian invasion of Georgia, the Iranian bloodbath, the lawful removal of Honduras’ Zelaya, and now this rash rebuke of a Cambridge policeman – this is becoming a tired repeat performance from the President, and something we were repeatedly warned about during the election: his judgement.

And the other unspoken aspect of this affair is ego. This is a classic “don’t you know who I am?” episode, and the egos don’t get any larger than those of the faculty in Cambridge.

It’s also nice to note that we must have reached racial parity in this country. When a black professor can be shown to have the same arrogance as a white brahman like John Kerry, then I guess true equality has arrived.

People who enslave other people are all people in the world. Contrary to interesting revisionism found only in America, whites have enslaved whites, blacks have enslaved blacks, blacks have enslaved whites (most slaves in Rome were blond and several citizens were black), and whites have enslaved blacks. The ONLY things that stopped slavery were a) the industrial revolution b) the Western code of equality of humans. There are still slaves in Africa and Islam sanctions slavery.

Obama is descended from a slave-trading tribe in Kenya and white slave owners in Kansas. If you’re going on the principle that descendants of slave owners can’t be presidents, you’re in real trouble, aren’t you? More trouble than you think since EVERY HUMAN BEING of every color is descended from slavers, slaves and slave owners. Pfffffui.

Stop trying to claim that events that happened centuries ago are the fault of anyone alive today.

Please get off your victim kick and learn some history. Or some moral honesty.

The only slavery today in America for African-Americans is perpetuated by the ones who keep pushing the victim mentality, it creates a self imposed mental slavery. “I cant do it because (fill in the blank) is holding me back, keeping me down”
Absolutely kills any chance of personal achievement until that is reversed. And I have reversed it.
I have seen this first hand in the contrast of attitudes of American African-Americans and those from the Caribbean or Africa.
Total opposite overall attitudes, this is trained, in my opinion, those from other countries have not been exposed to the constant victim indoctrination.
I will acknowledge some of the prostitution rings lately busted and some of the employment arrangement for illegal immigrants amount to modern slavery, however, none of these affect African-Americans today.

I love it when people such as Andrew show up and give ye olde: “Well if gates behaved shamefully, what about all the times the police have behaved shamefully to minorities?”

This is the OJ Defense in which the jury decides to let the perp skip not because he didn’t carve up two people (they know he did), but because something happened to Great Aunt Judy in 1962 and, by God, everybody gets a pass since then.

I haven’t looked but I expect everybody who loves O beyønd distraction and sense is copping an OJ for him and Gates all across the web tonight with thousands of others nodding assent like a tsunami of drinking birds bobbing over the glass.

For the sock puppets or legitimate commenters who support Gates, how far do you want it to go? As an organization we have experience with this sort of thing, some quotes:
“Because of the black unity movement, they find it difficult to accept punishment on an individual basis. Rather, they perceive that punishment to one is punishment to all.”
“Of the 150 or so who were present, most were armed. The XO followed one group to the forecastle, entered and, as he later stated, he believed that had he not been black he would have been killed on the spot. He addressed the group for about two hours, reluctantly ignoring his status as the XO and instead appealing to the men as one black to another. After some time he acquired control over the group, calmed them down, had them put their weapons at his feet or over the side, and then ordered them to return to their compartments. The meeting broke up about 2:30 in the morning and for all intents and purposes, the violence aboard Kitty Hawk was over”http://www.history.navy.mil/library/special/racial_incidents.htm#4a
We know what can happen and have worked hard to ensure this never happens again, keep pushing this and it wont be contained as easily.

Essentially all the absurd expectations of Obama are over. He is not the Messiah, the Great Obama, or The One. He is not the Healer of Our Divisions, the Prince of Transparency, or our Leader to the Post-Racial Promised Land.

I encourage everyone to read the link above, close to 40 years old but it seems we are going back there, for Neo, I always thought it would be a treat to observe human behavior on an Aircraft Carrier on a long deployment for someone in the mental health arena. People morph as the days go on, after about 60-75 days at sea everyone’s personality changes markedly, pretty fascinating, note that in the link above they had done 155 days straight, most I have done is 105, I morphed, and so did everyone else, probably played a large part in the race riots.

Obama is right those cops are stupid.
the man showed his ID. leave him along and go.
the hell with the police and there police unions.. As a blackman we are tired of these racist cop. torminating us. they are lucky blacks are just complaining. We need to start harasing cops on and off duty see if they like it. why the neighbor did not recorginize Mr. gates

Did it ever occur to you that there are black policeman? Are you going to harrass them? Do you want them to turn black neighborhoods over to the drive-by shooters,and drug dealers that destroy the brains of black children? Have you ever asked them what it is like to knock on a door, not knowing whether it would be opened to the accompaniment of gunfire?

It seems to me that blacks would achieve more by honoring those, black and white, who try to protect them than by professing outrage without knowing the facts. Maybe you should study basic police procedures and why they are employed. Then perhaps you could contribute something constructive toward solving very difficult problems.

It certainly gets more interesting day by day. Reason is disappearing across the board on the side of the left.
2010 and 2012 seem to be shaping up. We just don’t know who the republican replacements are yet.

Gates needs to keep a spare house key in his wallet. He also needs a burglar alarm installed in his home since he doesn’t seem to have one. It’s a cinch his neighbors have now taken his home off the neighborhood watch list. It would be fun to be a fly on the wall in his lecture classes the next few weeks to see what he has to say to his students about all this. Maybe some of the students will bring tape recorders and put his statements up on you tube.

I am not an Obama fan but if I was this would have ended it for me. I am very disappointed and frankly angered that the man that represents the whole country doesn’t do so at all. I am so sick of race being thrown into everything before facts have been looked at. Automatically it was assumed because he was friends with Obama and he was black that it was a race thing and a white cop could never have been just in what he was doing. This is a poor representation of the people in Washington.

“Yeah, the non-stupid charges filed against Gates were so non-stupid and important they were DROPPED!”
Gee the fact that Gates is a buddy of OBammy, that the governor and city mayor are Obama Toadies would not influence their decision to drop the case would it?
A little common sense of the facts from the kool-aid drinking Left Please!!!!
Off Topic-Left, Right, Troll, I don’t care- If you click on this link below, you can donate 10 boxes of Kraft Mac and Cheese to a foodbank daily until 7/31. Might as well try and do some good with this story http://brands.kraftfoods.com/sharealittlecomfort/

Nice work Barack… with one comment you managed to alienate 75% of America.

And anyone who has spent any amount of time in the “higher” education system knows the Professor Gates type: bitter, spiteful, bigoted racist with a position of power who felt emboldened to make a political statement.

This is the type of Professor who would change the subject on you when you attempt to engage in a debate- or would give you a poor grade because you actually have an opinion, and done research outside of marxist texts and such. You are fooling no one, Mr Gates.

Obama is out to rip this country to shreds in EVERY way- who can question that such ill-advised statements are divisive… and NOT helpful? He has no idea what happened, he admitted it- and apparently doesn’t care, either… he’s picked his side.

But back in reality, the childish and paranoid Gates completely baited the cop, who acted with admirable restraint, IMO… all he had to do is show his ID and shut up, he was treated with respect. This guy was clearly looking for a fight… and he ought to thank God he didn’t find one.

Obama is going to destroy race relations in this country with his vengeful “get even” mentality… some messiah- Americans should have chosen a fair and sensible human being instead of this embittered nut.

Oh, good grief, Logern. It’s just “Interacting with the Police 101”. You don’t harrass them while they are doing their jobs. If you do, you get a free ride to the station in handcuffs. Doesn’t matter what color your skin is.

And it doesn’t matter to the police whether the charges get dropped. The point is made.

It was stupid of Gates to imagine otherwise. It was stupid of Obama to make it an item on his primetime press conference. It was stupid of Obama to say “I don’t have all the facts, but…” then criticize the police or really say anything. He’s the President of the United States. Supposedly he has better things to do.

He was a President. So, is not. Did he not say doing a good job, Brownie (paraphrasing) without knowing the facts? Which, I might add was a much more monumental event than a one-on-one police incident. Did he not see the “mission accomplished” sign behind him at any point in time before he left the deck? And that’s tip of the iceberg.

Logern raises an interesting point in my mind, albeit in a different mode than he intended. Let’s assume Gates broke a law and was lawfully arrested. Why would the charge be dropped? Who told who to drop it? Who were the “dropees,” so to speak. Was it the Mayor? The Police Chief? The District Attorney? What was the rationale for dropping the charge? Are disorderly charges usually dropped in these types of cases?

And were there any phone calls from the Whitehouse to the Boston/Cambridge city administrative hierarchy or to local Democratic politicians? If so, who made the call and who received the call? Did Obama intercede for his friend? Just speculation but intriguing nonetheless.

The question in my mind now is this: Was there any political pressure applied to get the charge dropped?

I think there’s a need to get some folks under oath on this matter. If I were the cop and I was slammed with a reprimand or fired because of this incident I would hire a good lawyer and sue in civil court in order get folks under oath in front of a judge and jury.

The “Mission Accomplished” banner was put up by and for the aircraft carrier’s crew not specifically for Bush’s appearance. Considering the amount of attention it was given in the press, that little fact should have come out. Unless the MSM had an axe to grind.

EVERY HUMAN BEING of every color is descended from slavers, slaves and slave owners. Pfffffui.

completey untrue

care to tell us about the slaves of latvia?

how about the large slave holdings of the inuit?

i could go on..

and western slavery started as a social good, like most socialist caused ills.

there is not a direct line of slavery from romans to us. it was broken several times…

the slave trade that everyone regales starts with the portugese, not white man.. a missionary was appalled at the kinds and cosntant conflicts of the peopel of africa, and how, they normally committed genocide (if one studies this, you will find that the more you move from primitive, the less you will find genocide acceptable).

so he decided that he could arrange to buy the women and children that would normally be slaughtered.

good intentions makes for remarkable levels of evil.

there is no sympathic magic (cargo cult) where good intentions lead to good outcomes. (Even evil intentions can lead to good outcomes, and of course the obviosu visa versa).

there are many cultures who did not have slaves… (and expanding the definitions doesnt make the situion better).

“…I believe at a deep level Obama really does hate whites, and by extension, America as a white country. I think that is the linchpin for Obama, rather than socialism or Marxism.”

I would add that since Obama is half white, Obama hates himself, and imposing some form of Socialism/Fascism/Marxism–whatever despotic system he is attempting to frog march us all toward–on predominantly white America is his way of seeking some sort of revenge, of punishing the part of him that he hates.

this story thouigh is about school… it doest not speak about whats outside of school and what often happens later.

for instance, i went to a school like this in the days when this kind of modern living was new. so us kids knew that back on our blocks the story was not so one sided and so much the same. at least not yet.

there were desperate parents who just couldnt teach their kids cause the way that welfare broke up the families. the men were marginilized as we are now doing to all families. so there was a lot of sociali enginerring experimentation and games played. living in the same neighborhoods and being as poor showed me these games, its why i often have complicated views that can only be partially expressed by long posts. (and are still misunderstood).

this article will in a nutshell show you a huge amount of the problem and whats going on. frmo the fact that by constnatly experimenting on all cause you cant divide people up for better techniques has ruined education for most, and not saved the few. the few dont need to be saved as they are taken care of and cant see why they should even try.

but, if one wants to see how relativism, and the games taht the frankfurt school can be social acid, then read that post and rather try to understand it, not belittle the man for describing the situation and how horrible it is.

shutting him up is what keeps it that bad!!!

the fact that he is willing to be hated, and such to get this message out says that deep down, he still wants thing to be better for all.

but you will quickly note how impossible it is when they all self re-inforce such a cultural attitude.

such an aritlce shows that the improvements have done nothing but make it worse… at least when i was a kid, these kids were not hte majority, they were just the other half… there were still many who i guess later grew up into the gates, and others.

they never realized that they became who they wre by their own work and instead traded their freedom and minds to an ideology that takes claim to what it doesnt do and then directs. poor gates.

We have an answer to the questions I posed earlier. The police department did not drop the charge – the City Attorney decided “not to go forward” with the charge. A black, prominent, famous member of the community was arrested and the City Attorney decided “not to go forward.”

The City Attorney needs to be asked why the charge was dropped. Dear readers, if any one of us had been arrested for disorderly conduct would any of our City Attorneys decide “not to go forward?”

At the very least it suggests a class-based favoritism. At worst it points toward a dual system of justice – one for an anointed, privileged class within a minority and one for the rest of us.

Of course the chain is broken, my father wasn’t a slave, but all peoples are descendants of slaves. I’m just putting this out because we look like dopes when we dress up straw men like this … and it may be cute and gigglie (I really confuzed that there lebral doh-he doh-he) but it’s not a pursuit of truth. Nothing personal — just keep it real.

It would be fun to be a fly on the wall in his lecture classes the next few weeks to see what he has to say to his students about all this. Maybe some of the students will bring tape recorders and put his statements up on you tube.

Br549, Gates teaches grievance studies (could you tell?), not any serious subject. He’s basically in an affirmative action sinecure, an intellectual sandbox for third-rate intellects created to assuage liberal guilt, which Harvard has in abundance. The chance that any of his students will leak anything embarrassing is zero.

But the real story here is how much you guys hate AMERICA.

Non sequitur.

Stop spitting on the law, the President, and whatever you usually spit on. blockquote>

The culture that has the longest record of slavery is the Ottoman Empire which is also the longest lasting empire, lasting from 1299 to 1922, continuing without a break for over 6 centuries. It was a bloody, intimidating empire, putting many nations and cultures to the sword as examples to those who might oppose its expansion. The empire was administered by an Islamic Caliphate.

Folks should smile when Islamic terrorists and those who apologize for the terrorists speak about “imperial America,” “British colonialism,” and other similar phrases denigrating Western history.

This whole exchange really highlights how our federal system is broken, or at least mismanaged. The Constitution specifies the limits of federal powers and clearly states that any right not accorded to the federal government is given to the states. In this case, this means local police powers and procedures.

However, when you have special interest groups (Gates, other “victims”) that want to change or supersede local laws against the judgment of the local authorities and people, they must rent-seek with national politicians to make a national issue out of a local incident. Considering the makeup of our federal government, most Democratic party special interests figure they have a free pass now to change local laws.

The problem with this paradigm is that the inherent result is a nationwide policy that might not be appropriate for every state or every situation. The hubris of national politicians (right or left) is so strong that they assume that they know what is right for everyone. They never question whether local authorities might know more about the facts or considerations of the case. It’s analogous to price floors or ceilings in economics: the authorities assume that they know the proper price for a good or service, but they forget that to price it correctly they need all of the data (which they might not have access to). The cost of that ill-considered regulation or law could be dramatic for the consumer because the price is not naturally occurring (observe rent control in NYC).

So the real question is how can we take power back to the local governments? I think we can start by making national politicians look stupid or silly when they comment on local affairs. Obama particularly will implode if we challenge his assumptions and his statements. He’s ridden the wave to the White House based on his apparent promise and potential, so contradicting him on the merits of his arguments would reveal the side of Obama that he’s hiding from the electorate under that “cool” and “reserved” exterior.

Dear readers, if any one of us had been arrested for disorderly conduct would any of our City Attorneys decide “not to go forward?”

Grackle, in all honesty, the answer is probably “yes.” DAs have enough caseload with serious crimes not to mess with small stuff. (It’s why they plea bargain; they can’t possibly prosecute all the criminals. There are lots of Democrats out there. /g)

The cop doubtless knew that the case would be dropped, but just wanted to put the fear of God (Gaia?) into Gates, and inconvenience him, to teach him not to hassle a cop in the performance of his duties.

Obama is witnessing the collapse of his overblown strategy and his slavishly admiring polls. This is a huge defeat, which cannot be reversed. He cannot return to being the Hope’n’Change Messiah.

Six months into this administration, the honeymoon is over and he has nothing — nothing — to show for it besides the pork barrel stimulus which has not only failed, but many consider to have worsened the economy.

Obama has never suffered a major defeat in his life. It will be fascinating and frightening to see how he handles it.

Portia-
well said! I was going to point out something in the same vein, but probably wouldn’t have said it so well.

grackle-
“mission accomplished”– the war was over.
(rather short war, really–it’s the clean up that’s suckin’) Was the V-E day celibration wrong, even though when my dad was in germany during ‘Nam there were folks killed in bombings?
Additionally, as pointed out, that was the ship’s mission.

slavery in general:
Finding a culture without slavery is a lot harder than finding one with; Ireland is a good example, as St. Patrick is a very famous slave.
In spite of the only person who studied possible Inuit slavery (back when we were allowed to call all far-north Indians “Eskimo”) not being able to find any evidence of it– as they were “far too primitive” to think of it on their own (no, I’m serious, that’s basically what he said….)– that doesn’t rule out their ancestors holding slaves, since it would only take *one* a couple hundred years ago for the “ancestor” part to kick in. Additionally, it’s well known that the Eskimo tribes were raided for slaves by the more southern tribes– raids usually include rape. Rape sometimes results in children. Boom, your blood-taint is established.

See, that’s why I hate this whole stupid “blood taint” thing about “but someone that you might have blood in common with did THIS!!!!”
Oh, grow up, and get some basic understanding of probability….

Never mind the sad shell that Carter is now. Back then he was a somewhat foolish but not unsound person, facing a poor economy, but not a critically damaged one, and foreign affairs which were largely understood and stable. Carter was looking to reform America but not remake it as Obama has tried.

I don’t consider Obama a sound person. Yet he is president at a far more dangerous time than Carter, and Obama’s strategy has been to hack away at the economy with an axe and subsume as much control of the country to the government.

Will Obama be chastened and move towards the center to accept a more modest presidency or will he continue to the left with as much combativeness and subterfuge as he can muster?

grackle: I don’t know, but my guess is that the City Attorney might drop such charges as a matter of course. There are limited resources for prosecution, and a person in such a position has to make a decision as to what cases are worth pursuing. In a case such as that of Gates (even if it hadn’t gotten all that publicity), where the person doesn’t have a record, is essentially law-abiding, and is a stable member of the community, my guess is that the arrest would have acted to defuse the tensions of the situation, and it would be warning enough that the person would be unlikely to do it again (normally, that is). So no need to ask for a conviction.

That’s just a guess, though. In the case of Gates, it does seem as though the prominence of the case and influence of the potential defendant would be a possible factor. It would be interesting to know at what point the charges were dropped—had the case already made headlines, for example?

and nyo… why dont you tell me who came up with that stupid doctrine and do you understand what it embodies and how its made being nasty to each other being real?

give you a hint… he was one of the most least known of the franfurt school guys… and unlike adorno and marcuse… he went into black community and they picked up on facets of his work… his philosophical view that violence, pain, and sadistic behavior was the only real and honest behavior.

did you know any of this?

that his philospophy stuff espoused the truth that polite people that do what is expected reveal little about themselves or the situations. i remember the works and the stuff leading up to it that was in writings that made such a step happen.

[hey.. i have alreay explained that rocky horror and shock treatment are abstract tales telling what the franfurt school has done to us. that would be a fun one for neo to do… frankenfurter? the secret perverted transexual transelvanians and their gender plots… even the music.. its just a JUMP TO THE LEFT… then a tiny step to the right… :)]

anyway… most people think that the word Rap is from talking… but its not.. the reason the music is called rap, for those in the know.. is because of a man who is now named (two names later).

Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin… he was born hubert gerold brown… and is the model for much of people like gates today..

later he was known as H “RAP” Brown.. becuase of his poetry and how he used to ryme in his speeches…

i remember him from my childhood even though everyone else has forgotten him.

and i remember the stuff where he got idea from, which is why i refer back to the frankfurt school guyes. the precursors to the more formal doctrines of alinsky.

anyway… Rap said things like this, and a major population has now made a part of themselves his anger, and other things.

“Violence is as American as cherry pie.”

An old African leader says about leadership, he says that leadership should never be shared; it should always remain in the hands of the dispossessed people. We will lead the revolution.

on why so many live a criminal life:
But black people fall for that same argument, and they go around talking about law breakers. We did not make the laws in this country. We are neither morally nor legally confined to those laws. Those laws that keep them up, keep us down.

If America don’t come around, we’re gonna’ burn it down.

In terms of the revolution, I believe that the revolution will be a revolution of dispossessed people in this country: that’s the Mexican American, the Puerto Rican American, the American Indian, and black people.

The man does not beat your head because you got a Cadillac or because you got a Ford; he beats you because you’re black!

The only politics in this country that’s relevant to black people today is the politics of revolution… none other.

The poverty program was not designed to eliminate poverty.

[he is right, but his anger is directed to those that did not create this, and he is on the side of those that did, for the attitude he has and has given the africans has resulted in their increased poverty, increased genetic stupidity (if you take money from smarter africans in taxes, who have less children beause they are responsible, and you give it to those who instead have 8 kids by 5 men, your not raising the intelligence of the popluation, are you? same for all races that this is done to. the enclave of elites that dont practice this on top, have a different end demographically)]

We happen to be the vanguard of that revolutionary struggle because we are the most dispossessed.

You see, the poverty program for the last five years have been buy-off programs.

Huxley here is the button you and Baklava have been searching for – thanks to Occam:

“So the real question is how can we take power back to the local governments? I think we can start by making national politicians look stupid or silly when they comment on local affairs. Obama particularly will implode if we challenge his assumptions and his statements.”

Neo said “Now Gray, please, some of my best friends went to Harvard :-)!”

Hummm. .. . likely speaking for many in here … we’re sorry to hear that. Oh well, you have us Neo.

i dont know if anyone caught something i said in one of the early posts.

but i am realizing that these guys are much like those at war… they are fighting the current battle with the game of yesteryear…

see the statement if neo didnt edit, about fractured commnuications being fixed by a new form harder to control than before till it reached a scale free network. a scale free network we use to communicate that was designed to outfox nuclear bombs and the control that they can exploit.

that is… they have never been on the side of truth and vaildity or else they would have formed great debates they woudl win on facts, and so on (the thing they pretend to be while it only being cargo cult).

so they have always had to master how to handle technology as it appears. so today they finally have saturation on tv and movies… but people now make their own movies and sucnh on the net.

they send shill, which work in meetings and more material invironments… and that doesnt work since the tech lets us compare across many ways and lines.

they try to use the net to communicate and tell their constituency when to show up. but the tea protestotrs show up two hours earlier and start before them.

gates is a perfect example in a petri dish.

all one has to do is dial in a year, adn think of the technology and one will find that gates is stuck in an era where the form of manipulation and such of the opponent was facilitated by his behavior.

so dial back to pre radio… if such incidents could be followed in press… he would do his schick, and the press would report it.. but then, the press made money finding the juice. so it woudlnt work.

turn it a bit later… now you have radio.. you have a established bully pulpit.. now think of the incident… it becomes a he said she said form of discourse that then divides camps based on their personal opinion.

so if you think to the 50s thru say up to 80s… this worked great… its how gates got his chops.

but as you go forward there… the image and such of police as well as these agitators becomes more complex. they are sometimes caught on film.

they grasp the new tech as a way to get at their opponents, but they did not grasp that snce they are on the wrong side of manipulation and truth, the same thing woudl trap them.

do notice that the police officer in this case was on the side of validity and truth…

now move forward a bit more… and you have cell phones with movie cameras in it. (imagine the 60s with SDS and some attendees filming them talk about exterminations, or their trisp to cuba and such. how easy would things have then been?)

gates and obama are stuck in a time where the person who could get on media could in most cases control the message.

30 years ago, that police officers career would be over. even if he was spotless… railroading was easier.

within 24 hours his bs game which is old tactics in a new war… (like rank and file when cartriges came out), and he is now up against people on the side of truth that know the modern technology. (for instnace the pirate party is more complex than people think).

how long before people are walking around with those t-shirts?

and what is gates and the lefts reprise for this?

if the shirt is false they can get sued for libel
and so they cant do anything.

and i will bet that by the end of the week, there will be some pretty pernicious obama ones.

and this is the danger in this new age.

that if your not on the side of validity and truth… the crap will no longer wash off..

Thread has drifted to the profound, but I will note that the cops’ union seems to have a recording of the tape, which would probably include Gates’ words.
A police union is requesting an apology from zero.
And it is reported–not sure of how certain this is–that Crowley is thinking about a defamation lawsuit.
Gates might be willing, hearing about the tape, to decide to drop the matter. Can’t imagine him apologizing. Which means, if the report about the defamation suit is correct, Gates doesn’t get the matter dropped.
Somehow or other, the responses to this haven’t been what has usually happened when the proper buttons have been pushed. Perhaps a couple of wheels on the victimization wagon are getting loose.

grackle: I don’t know, but my guess is that the City Attorney might drop such charges as a matter of course.

Even if I was publicly accusing the police officer of some sort of malfeasance? I think not. Gates was charging racism even before his arrest and has never stopped. Any City Attorney should be able to see that if the charge is dropped that it would be seen by many as a tacit admission to the truth of Gates’s accusation.

By dropping the charge many will think that there was no basis to the charge in the first place. With many blacks it will be suspicions confirmed.

Our black brothers and sisters made a huge racial-relations mistake with Obonga. To avoid a regression to racism, it was necessary for the first black POTUS to clearly be one for all the people, not the hating, bigoted, affirmative-action-escalated one they overwhelmingly voted for.

The police union’s request seems appropriate. However, in a separate game and on a separate level, the police union has handed Barack a gift: their strong demand allows Barack to rethink and to issue a public apology; allows Barack to extricate himself while actually being magnanimous.

NOTHING in Barack’s history indicates he will either recognize or accept this gift which the police union is offering. However, there is always a first time. An apology, this afternoon, to the police union, et al, could save Barack. Friday afternoon is the perfect news dump moment for such to occur. The clock is ticking, the opportunity is golden, Barack is likely too dense and too brittle and too poor of a strategic thinker to recognize it. We shall see.

Now, if I were an American soldier in Honduras for, say, a couple of six-month tours working with the Honduran Army and making friends….
And if I were aware, as everybody is, of the legal issues involved in turfing out Zelaya….
And my government–zero–ordered me to obstruct the Hondurans in their actions to prevent Zelaya’s return…?
Slam down a box of “stimulants” and show up at sick call with a galloping case of the Toltec Two-Step…?

Barack is not too dense and too brittle to see a need for “Barackapology”, which consists of a weasel combination of words which actually deny that Barack insulted either Officer Crowley or the Cambridge Police Dept., but which do apologize for giving the impression that he insulted. LOL

Still, Barack’s words will allow his media cheerleaders to trumpet his “apology”. Officer Crowley and the Cambridge Police will probably allow Barack’s weasel words to be characterized as an apology. It’s likely the best they will get. They are in the police business, not the politics business. What will they gain by extending a fight with a POTUS who has the resources to make their lives miserable?http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090724/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_harvard_scholar

joe buzz: no problem. It was a very deceptive hoax. What tipped me off was the fact that there was no link to the original LA Times article. And when I tried to find it, and also Googled the supposed author, all I found were a few reproductions of the supposed article on blogs.

My guess: He or one of His acolytes will come out with the statement that He should have made back when, and ignore the first one entirely.

Then He can always point to the second statement as His position on the matter. If anyone asks about the first one, which the MSM will bury post haste, He’ll do his shtick about “moving beyond the issues that divide us” and “building a post-racial world.”

The MSM will applaud these vapid platitudes and then publish a series of articles on shark attacks or something. Case closed.

Hmph. Being a Texan as I am, I don’t understand why the policeman’s union, and not the city of Cambridge Mass, is demanding the apology. Obama didn’t smear the union, he smeared the city’s police department.

— Oh, I think I might get it. The (black) mayor apologized for the evils of his city’s police department, is that it? (snicker) That wouldn’t end it here! I’d like to see what happen if the mayor of Dallas were to apologize to some race-baiting academician in the same situation, and hear what all three (or is it four?) Dallas policeman’s unions would have to say about the mayor having the temerity to apologize for their behavior. Particularly since all Dallas politics is about race. That’s why I moved out of Dallas County.

I’m beginning to wonder if Obama actually seeks to be a deplorable president. What better cannon fodder for the race industry over the next two decades than pointing out how evil whitey destroyed this nice young man?

This incident also underscores what a terrible politician Obama actually is. He’s trying to muster support for Obamacare, which has hit some tough sledding, and an issue on which he has recently been in a full court press.

So what does he do? Push it off the front page with this stupid distraction, allowing it to lose still more momentum. The chances of Obamacare passing dropped a lot just this last week, along with Obama’s approval index. Smooth move.

They know that this is the make-or-break time for Obama’s presidency and there is no do-over.

Not that it has to be this way, but they decided early on to gamble that they could use their big Congressional majorities and the financial crisis for the radical transformation of America to neo-socialism with the Democratic Party perpetually in charge.

They did not have to do this. Victor Hanson has a fine article on PJM today how Obama could have stuck to his pragmatic, transformative centrist persona and become a truly remarkable president.

he looks in the mirror… how, how could the ideology of my fathers be wrong? how could following all these rules come out bad all the time? things should be going great, but they are going down so fast i am praying constantly… i have no one to talk to, everyone is telling me that what i am doing is the right thing, i cant get any other answers, and everything that i have acheived is coming to naught.

I was so sure, i never bothered to learn how the system that was not to be worked… it made no sense to me since it was to be replaced with something better.

it must be those who disagree with me either in the open or secretly. they must be opposing me and doing so well i didnt see them. thats why nothings working. those people are purposefully sabotaging it to make me look bad to preserve the status quo.

Obama’s was not an apology for an unfair assertion about Sgt. Crowley and the Cambridge Police.

Rather, Obama’s was a reassertion of the righteousness of Obama’s belief that the police acted stupidly.

Obama’s statement was also an apology for not asserting police stupidity in a rhetorically slick fashion. Basically, it was an apology for getting caught at being truthful and forthright. Obama is saying: I apologize for not having been more skillful at misleading the yokels. Not you guys, of course! YOU guys would have known what I meant. However, I should have said it in a way which would appease the yokels. I did not say it in a way which would appease the yokels and yet signal to you smart people. For that, I apologize.

Obama’s is a slick tactic of a fake apologizer: apologize not for the transgression, but rather for displaying lack of skill. The true narcissist will favor an apology for a lack of skill in an area in which the narcissist has demonstrably excellent skill. Therefore, even as the narcissist “apologizes”, the narcissist is effectively praising himself for having such wonderful skill in this area. Thus, we see Obama’s “apology” was actually a subtle acknowledgement of Obama’s rhetorical skill. In fact, and maybe I’m overconditioned, but I could barely hear even a fake apology over the loud clanging implicit praise of The One’s rhetorical skill, i.e. I’m usually so fantastic and wonderful at rhetoric, and I apologize for not being as fantastic and wonderful as usual. There! Aren’t I reasoned and wonderful and magnanimous for apologizing?! Of course I am. Now let me lecture YOU about jumping to conclusions, and about race. You will love it.

one small view of a living room in a huge palacial estate you see a world leader laughing… as the camera pulls back, you see the same thing in lots of monitor screens filling up your view, each screen is only different in the trappings and decorations… you see kim jong with his funny hair and that assinine coat, sniggering… in the lower right, you see castro brother raul looking satisfied. to the left side, puting and gorbachev are laughing so hard they have tears in their eyes..

at the end you see them all turn off the screen and say in their own languages, cant wait till tomorrow to see what he does next, that guy just cracks me up.

funniest wrong phrase…Good for him then he can sue him for deformation of character

best bottom line quote:Folks, Why the outrage it is only a black mayor, black governor, and a black president verbally attacking a white police office for arresting a black Harvard scholar. This should not be a problem. The real problem would be if a white mayor, white governor, and a white president verbally attacked a black police office for arresting a white Harvard scholar. Folks, there is a simply solution to this issue. Release any tape or transcriptase an let the people decide who is at fault. An the person at fault needs to step up an say I am sorry and then resign from their jobs, an get help for racism. We do not need a raciest in the police force, teaching at Harvard, mayor office, governor offices or the white house.

the union is holding a tape over obamas head and saying they got it from damacles

least distracted awardHas anybody bothered to ask who W.E.B. Dubois was? He was an early black American Communist well known for his communist and redistribution of wealth ideas. Obama’s past church in Chicago immortalized him and his philosophy, so is it any wonder that all of this comes about as this professor, connected to this past communist, should be embroiled in this incident? I would rather attention be focused on the Dubois connection and promulgation of that ideology than the rantings of this puffed up “victim”. The W.E.B. Dubois connection is probably why Obama is personally acquainted with this guy, and basically why the cop doing his job “didn’t know who he was messing with”.

Grackle – earlier: The City Attorney needs to be asked why the charge was dropped. Dear readers, if any one of us had been arrested for disorderly conduct would any of our City Attorneys decide “not to go forward?””

I’d say, ‘probably yes’. Most people tend to get a freebie for their first offense if their crime was nonviolent.

I just saw an exchange on Fox News pro and con on the Gates affair. One of the main points of the pro-Gates guest, introduced as a “legal expert” by the name of David Wall, or maybe Wahl(I’m unsure of the spelling), was, “Let’s not forget that the charges were dropped.” This is something that we will hear over and over again from the pro-Gates folks.

Bless that City Attorney’s heart, dropping the charge certainly gave the pro-Gates folks a nice talking point.

The guest, who seemed to be a lawyer, also claimed that the dropping of the charges opened the door for a civil suit. Gates could actually end up getting a money judgement from the city and maybe get the officer fired. Thanks, City Attorney!

The other thing the pro-Gates guest claimed was that Gates was arrested in “his own home.” This is also what a black co-worker claimed when we talked about it yesterday. Yes, I know it is best to avoid these issues with black acquaintances but he broached the subject with me and persisted in the exchange even after I tried to deflect the way the conversation was going.

When I told the co-worker that I understood that Gates was arrested only after following Crowley outside the house he got a bit excited. “No, you’ve got that wrong,” he said.

And why shouldn’t he think Gates was arrested in his home? If Fox News lets a guest get away with an untrue statement it’ll probably be treated as a fact on CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, etc.

Readers, if you or I were arrested and alleged publicly and vigorously malfeasance on the part of the officer the charge would likely not be dropped no matter if it was a first offense or not. We would eventually be asked to recant by a judge and if we did not the judge would make an example of us. They really do not like it when such allegations are made and tend to teach a lesson to the recalcitrant when it occurs – unless of course you happen to be a black Harvard professor who is a friend of the POTUS. Then you get to claim “racial profiling,” denigrate a cop doing his job, loudly and publicly thumb your nose at the justice system and are free to contemplate a lawsuit.

About Me

Previously a lifelong Democrat, born in New York and living in New England, surrounded by liberals on all sides, I've found myself slowly but surely leaving the fold and becoming that dread thing: a neocon. Read More >>